Before I make this announcement, I want to offer apologies to the board for my role in the recent drama that has sprung up around this place. While I have very good reasons for why I haven't been able to be as "hands on" as I have in the past in keeping this train on the tracks, the fact is that I've let things slip a little, and the board is currently paying for it. As such, the buck stops with me, and I accept full responsibility for the recent drama. Over the next month, I will be taking steps to correct this situation in order to ensure that our community has the best possible experience in this very promising season.

With great regrets, it's my displeasure to inform the community that I have relieved my good friend Garcia Bronco of his moderation duties. This is a tremendous blow to myself personally, and I believe the community at large (despite the recent criticism that he's been under). And just so that everybody hears it first hand, this decision does not involve any moderating action that Garcia made while he was in practice. And while I hate to elaborate any further, I feel that I must due to the way that this went down in order to squash any rumors an innuendo and try to move forward and put this entire series of episodes behind us. I've deliberated long and hard about this tonight, and have come to the conclusion that the community deserves an explination so that all doubt about why it "really" happend can be put to rest and we can move forward.

Sadly, the reason that I'm dismissing Garcia as a moderator stems from a breach of confidence. It's come to my attention that he was taking personal communications during a recent moderating episode and forwarding them outside the moderator's circle of trust. As an administrator, I have to be able to confide in my moderators and talk through tough issues having full faith that those messages won't be spread past the folks who they are intended for. I can't have my moderators forwarding personal messages sent during moderating disputes (while the dispute is live and in process) to their friends. It undermines the whole process, and breaches an obvious trust.

With that said, I want to thank Garcia for his service here and the friendship we've had. I'm personally hurt over this situation and saddend that it had to come to this. It's my desire for Garcia to remain a member of this community as a regular user, though I can understand if he chooses to leave.

As a final word, I will note that I am currently writing this from vacation, where I logged into the Mane to check in on things. This isn't the decision that I wanted to make on the first night that I arrived at my destination, but it had to be done swiftly once it the situation was presented. I will try to address any feedback or criticism that I can on this, but I need to also focus on my family and mental health while I'm on this trip. As such, I'm going to lock this thread and ask that any feedback be given to me via PM or the rep system. I don't want this thread to devolve into a Garcia bash session (or worse).

I apologize for the further drama that this situation brings to what has already been a dramatic 7 days, and thank people for their trust and patience as I work with our moderators to improve things moving forward.